Rising Tides
by justanormalweeb
Summary: What if Luffy didn't eat the Gum-Gum fruit, but instead ate a different fruit? A unique fruit? Smarter, Stronger Luffy. LuffyxRobinxBoaHancock. Some small elements of Naruto. T, but could have minor sexual content.
1. Prologue

**Rising Tides**

What if Luffy didn't eat the Gum-Gum fruit, but instead ate a different fruit? A unique fruit?

Smarter, Stronger Luffy. LuffyxRobinxBoaHancock. Some small elements of Naruto

 **-Story Start!-**

"I'm going to prove to you all that I'm going to be a pirate!"

The town's citizens looked on in amusement, as Luffy stood on a bow of a ship holding a knife. They all assumed that he was going to do something completely idiotic, but none of them expected it when he cut himself under the eye.

"Owww!"

"Luffy! You get down here right now!"

"Shut up! I can take the pain! Then Shanks will have to admit that I'm strong enough to join his crew!"

Eventually, the townspeople manage to coax Luffy unto the dry land and force a bandage under his eye. Luffy sulked for a while, under he remembered he was going to meet up with Shanks today and sprinted over to the bar.

"Hey! Shanks! Did you see what I did today? Can I join your crew yet?"

"Ha! You can't handle being a pirate! Your still a kid, and you can't swim!"

"Hey! All I have to do is just stay onboard, and not be dumb! I'm great at fighting too! My punch is as strong as pistol fire!"

"Awww shut up! We both know that's not true! And you're always dumb."

"Am not!"

"Am too!"

Shanks crew and the other occupants of the bar looked on in amusement, while Luffy and Shanks argued over Luffy's "abilities".

Luffy eventually gave it up, and just sneaked drinks of sake while Makino wasn't paying attention.

As Luffy got hungry, he saw a little chest that was on one of the tables and opened it. When he saw weird red fruit inside, he swore Gramps had told him about something similar before. But he ignored his intuition and ate it anyway. After all, Luffy is a kid controlled by his stomach, not his brain

Shortly later, a group of mountain bandits bursts into the bar, demanding a barrel of sake. Unfortunately, Shanks and his crew had already drunk all that the bar had.

The mountain bandit, showing a wanted poster of himself, claimed that he had a bounty of 8,000,000 bellis.

Shanks, being a carefree guy, apologized, and offered them the last bottle of sake. The mountain bandit, about to smash the bottle unto Shank's face, felt a primal fear rise up inside of him, telling him to move. NOW!

As the guy jumped as fast as he could out of the way, a hand engulfed in flames, grazed his ribs. The force behind just that was sufficient to break them, as apparent from the loud _CRUNCH_ audible in the room.

Everybody in the bar was all extremely surprised, but no one more than Luffy himself.

'Holy shit. I was just trying to impress Shanks! My punches aren't this powerful! What is even going on?'

As the bandits grabbed their boss and ran, they shouted out one last message

"You're gonna regret that you bastard! We'll burn this town to the ground!"

Shanks and his crew ignored the bandits and were currently much more interested in Luffy.

"Alright, Luffy. What the hell did you just do?"

"Nothing! I was just made, and everything just felt confusing! I honestly don't know!"

"Wait a moment…"

Shanks felt a sinking realization that this was probably…

"Roo! Check the fruit!"

As Lucky Roo waddled over and checked inside the chest, he knew that it was empty as soon as he picked it up.

"Luffy… did you eat a red fruit with dragon heads all over it?"

"Yes… oh shit that a devil fruit wasn't it?"

"IF YOU KNEW THAN WHY DID YOU EAT IT?"

Shanks' entire crew stared on in disbelief.

"I don't know! It looked tasty. What's so bad about it anyway? Was it poisoned?"

"Of course not you dimwit! But it was the Mera-Riku-Fruit! One of a kind! Once you eat it, you became a literal fire dragon! You will still be human, but you can fly short distances, and you can control fire. You also have the strength of a dragon!"

"That's amazing! Sorry, though, guess I shouldn't have taken it, but what's the harm?"

"So you're fine with dying at the slightest contact with more than 20ml of seawater?"

"Wait, what? Why didn't you start with that!?"

Luffy proceeded to run around in a blind panic trying to vomit the fruit back out.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

After that fiasco, Luffy calmed down, and realized that his new power was insanely cool!

'Yay! My fruit is both a Logy whatever type and a Para-something fruit that Gramps told me about! Damn it though, I should have paid more attention. How do I use these abilities?'

Luffy originally decided that he was going to go buy some meat, as he suddenly had an insane hunger. As he was running to the store, he realized that he was going quite a bit faster than usual. Like a lot faster. He ran the entire mile and a half to the butcher shop in just under two minutes, but now he couldn't feel his legs, as he felt an enormous amount of hunger.

As soon as the butcher saw Luffy, he gave Luffy his entire breakfast: A large steak, along with 2 big bowls of rice. It was more than enough for the butcher, who was a grown man, but Luffy ate all of it and still looked hungry.

"Kid, what happened to you? You know if you're ever hungry you could always come to any of us. After all, it takes a village to raise a child."

"I don't know! I running here _*Burp*,_ oops sorry, when suddenly I just started feeling so tired. By the time I got here, I couldn't feel my legs. What happened to me?"

"Kid, you looked like you had one foot in the grave."

"What? But I run here every day!"

"Alright kid, I'll call the doctor, just stay here."

" No! I'm fine now! I swear!"

"Kid, don't be difficult. Just wait here."

Luffy made a disgusted looked face and ran away until he realized that the butcher was blocking the door. The butcher looked like he was considering grabbing Luffy and just bring him to the doctor, but decided it was too extreme.

"Hey, how about this. We'll comprimise. I'll call the doctor from those pirates that

you're so fond of, the doctor isn't in town anyways."

"Shank's crew?"

"Yeah, him. He seems like a pretty reasonable guy."

"Fine."

After all of that, the butcher finally called the Red Hair Pirate's doctor.

As soon as the Luffy explained what was going on to the doctor, the doctor looked like he was about to faint.

"Luffy. Are you absolutely sure that you felt this way?"

"Ummm. Yes? Is that bad?"

"Tell ya what. I'll call Shanks over, he'll explain this all to you."

The doctor walked into the hallway and after explaining the situation, Shanks was at the shop in less than a minute, looking more serious than Luffy had ever seen him."

"Luffy. This is really bad. Here's the thing, that Mera-Riku fruit only has a 1% chance to do this. Ever since it first exsisted, random people have eaten it, ones who weren't strong enough to handle the power. They died instantly."

The butcher, looking at the pale look on Luffy's face, decided that he should probably speak up for him.

"So what's gonna happen to Luffy here? He hasn't died yet. Can't you guys do some weird surgery on him?"

"It's not that simple. To put it simply, the fruit evolved so that when people eat it, it wouldn't release all of its power. However, on the rare occasion that someone strong enough eats this unique fruit, the fruit rewrites their bodies. If they aren't strong enough to endure it, they die. However, I can manually override this. However, you will forever lose the power."

"What's the survival rate on this?"

Luffy looked pained to ask this, as he knew that it probably wouldn't help his courage to know.

"Well… its a lot less than 1%"

"That's a death sentence! Take it out of the boy! He can't survive this bullshit!"

The butcher looked livid. He had grown close to Luffy and didn't want to see him die to something as dumb as this.

"Sorry, but that's Luffy's decision to make. If he wants to keep it, I won't do anything. I will say though, that hundreds of people have undergone this, and only one has ever succeeded."

"Are you insane? I use to think quite highly of you Shanks. As a pirate, you were always fair, and never picked fights. The entire village did. But now? I see through your disguise. You're just like all of them! You are no better any other pirate! You're perfectly fine with watching a child die!"

"It's his decision. We aren't going to stop him from achieving his destiny."

The butcher looked like he was about to punch Shanks, but held back.

"This boy isn't dumb. There is no way in hell that he'll listen to your bullshit!"

Luffy looked pained, but his hand traced over his scar, and he knew what his decision was going to be. Gramps was going to be disappointed.

"No. I'll do it. If this is what it takes to be a pirate than so be it! But if I survive, you're taking me into your crew!"

"Spoken like a true pirate! Sure, if you survive, I'll let you into my crew. But only to train. Once you're nine, you're coming back here."

"Deal."

And with that final statement, Luffy blacked out.

 **AN: Hell Yeah! New Story! I really like the idea of this one, and I hope you guys do too! I'm not too sure if I should have a training chapter, or if I should just skip it. Tell me your thoughts in the reviews I guess. Maybe I could just skip it, and do flashbacks I guess.**

 **I'm writing a lot more now, so expect a new chapter for HBK on Saturday.**

 **Leave a review! And... cya!**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Well, the review count is a bit disappointing, but thank you Sylux for pointing out my mistake! Basically, Luffy will be training for 2 years, not 7 (Bit of a mistake on my part). Now that that's out of the way, onwards with the story!**

 **[Timeskip- 2 Years]**

Luffy was on the deck with Shanks, for 'one last match', as Luffy called it. Luffy had wanted Shanks to go all out with him, but yet again, Shanks had held back. The result was still the same as always though: A passed out Luffy and a lightly injured Shanks.

Luffy now had the power, along with the ability to fight, or at least defend against Shanks (albeit a held-back one), but being a nine-year-old, he didn't have nearly enough stamina to keep up with him.

After two years of conditioning his body, Luffy could now turn his body into flame at will and summon wings to fly, but both of these taxed far too much energy for his body to handle. All of his abilities used these two in conjunction to fly and unleash devasting attacks, but this mostly left Luffy in a semi-dead state after only four or five attacks.

Luffy still remembered when Benn first explained his powers to him.

The basics of it are that Luffy has all the powers that normal Mera-Ryuu Fruit users have, but amplified. However, this includes the weaknesses, so even the slightest contact with the sea with kill Luffy instantly.

Once Luffy has awakened his powers fully, he would be able to fly for close to an hour, but as he is now, he could barely maintain his wings for a full minute.

'Damn! Why am I still so weak! Shanks can beat me, and he isn't even using his Haki! Isn't this trip suppose to make me strong?'

"Hey! Luffy! I know what you're thinking. Don't be so hard on yourself, alright? It took years for me to get this powerful, even with the help with the best crew in the East Blue! A squirt like you won't catch up to me!"

"Of course I'll catch up, and beat you! Then I'll become the pirate king!"

Shanks looked like he was about to retort, as Lucky Roo interrupted them.

"Hey, Captain? We're having a party before Luffy goes! To celebrate him finally leaving!"

"Heh. We'll be down there in a second."

Luffy merely grinned, as he knew that the crew would miss him just as much as he would miss being a part of the crew, which was to say, a hell lot.

Shanks went down first, after telling Luffy to come down when he was ready.

Just as Luffy was getting prepared to go to the party, Benn Beckman came onto the deck.

"Luffy. Shanks didn't tell you this, because he wants you to forge your own path, but when you get back t your island, talk to your grandpa, and ask him to train you. While we can train you on your devil fruit and such, we don't have the time to train you physically. He's probably one of the strongest men in East Blue, and I have no doubt he'd train you if you asked."

"Alright, but I'm not happy about this. He just hits me a lot and doesn't teach me anything!"

Luffy had grown to trust and listen to Benn, even when he didn't agree with him. Benn did have the highest IQ in the East Blue, and intelligence was something that Luffy lacked at the moment.

"Alright! Let's get this party started!" Shanks led his entire crew onto the deck, most of them holding platters of food, while others were carrying barrels of sake and rum.

That night, while the entire crew was dancing and drinking booze, Luffy was trying to hold back tears, as he thought of tomorrow. Tomorrow he would be back in Windmill Village, and he probably wouldn't see the Red Haired Pirates again for years. Luffy was generally a pretty cheerful guy, but he felt sad as he considered the fact that his childhood hero was going to leave him today. He knew that he couldn't have been in Shank's crew forever, but now that his time was up, he didn't know what to do.

"Hey, how come you aren't partying with us? You look like you've been crying in a corner!" Shanks looked a bit concerned about Luffy, but that didn't stop him from poking fun. "Are you going to beg me to let you join my crew again?"

"No. I'll become a pirate on my own!"

"Ha! You don't have what it takes to be a pirate!"

"I do! And one day I'll assemble a crew that's even stronger than yours! And I'll become the pirate king!" Shanks looked surprised, but didn't reply, preferring to rejoin the party.

-o-o-o-o-o-

"You guys are leaving me for real this time?"

"Yeah…" Shanks looked away, looking at his crew getting ready to set sail again. He grinned, "You've been training with us for long enough, it's time for us to move on."

"Alright. But one day I'll become the King of the Pirates, and surpass even you!"

Shanks' grin grew even bigger, as he said "Is that right?" Luffy stared at the ground, as

tears leaked out despite his best efforts.

"Take my favorite hat, and when you surpass me, then you can give it back to me!" Shanks then leapt aboard his ship, and shouted "Become a great pirate Luffy!"

"Goodbye Shanks!"

-o-o-o-o-o-

Months after Shanks had left, Garp came back to the island, and the as soon as Luffy saw him...

"Hey Gramps! Can you train me?"

 **AN: This is kinda of a filler chapter, and I really do apologize for that, but I have to start the story somehow. I'm not too decisive on whether or not I should pair him with Nami/Boa or neither. So I guess I'm putting it down to a vote. Between now, and Chapter 5, tell me who you vote for!**

 **Don't forget to review, and cya!**


	3. Chapter 3

**I really lost my drive for this, trying to gain it back. But I've made a new account and a much better story in my opinion. Go read it, and once that's done/ if I want to come back to this, I'll try to start it up again. I have... a lot of motivation for that story.**


End file.
